Contributors Meetup Async Update - Aug 17th - Aug 30th, 2024

Working Groups Core Contributors
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Core Contributor Update: Aug 17th - Aug 30th, 2024

Use the jump links below to view the section that interests you:

  1. Working Groups Updates
  2. Events
  3. Projects
  4. Next async update and meetup

1. Working Groups Updates

Working Groups Calendar

1.1. BTR Working Group

Chair: @jalondonot

:paperclip: Latest news

  • Redwood retrospective:
  • Thinking ahead: Sumac
    • :scissors: sumac.master ~ 2024-10-09
    • :one: sumac.1 ~ 2024-12-09
    • Alignment with the 2024-2025 Community Release Plan and monthly follow-ups led by the Product WG starting on 08/08
    • Cutoff and release dates
    • We’re considering two options: either 6 weeks before release, on Oct 23, or 7 weeks before release, on Oct 16. The 7-week option is there to account for the week-or-so that it took for the release testing sandbox to come up for Redwood. If Edly can guarantee the testing sandbox can be ready a day before the cutoff, we could aim to a 6-week testing and debugging period.
  • Vacant BTR positions
    • We agreed on guaranteeing a shadowing period for offering some psychological safety to the new members and ensuring a proper knowledge transfer.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.2. Contributor Coordination Working Group

Chair: Jorge LondoĂąo

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-08-06 CC Working Group Meeting Notes

  • Onboarding and Communication
    Cassie has worked on a report about the answers to core contributor experience survey. Specifically, she pointed at requested improvements with the onboarding of new contributors, such as integrating a handbook with an onboarding course to make information more accessible and straightforward.
  • Establishing next steps & decisions based on the survey results
    Adolfo and other contributors discussed the need for setting clear action items following Cassie’s presentation of data and proposals. The idea was to organize and prioritize the overwhelming amount of information into actionable plans that could be tackled by the community.
  • Improving the availability of meeting recordings & transcripts through automation
    The discussion highlighted the need for better automating recording and sharing meeting content to enhance asynchronous participation. Ed, Xavier and Jorge discussed the technical possibilities and challenges, such as enabling automatic recording in Zoom meetings and ensuring all community members, regardless of their role, have access to start meetings and recordings.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.3. Data Working Group

Chair: @e0d & @blarghmatey

:memo: Meeting notes

1.4. DEPR Working Group

Chair: @feanil

:paperclip: Latest news

:memo: Meeting notes

1.6. Tutor Users’ Group

Chair: Kyle McCormick

:memo: Meeting notes

1.7. Educators Working Group

Chair: @john_curricume

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2024-05-20 Educator WG

:memo: Meeting notes

1.8. Frontend Working Group

Chair: @arbrandes

:paperclip: Latest news

  • Proposal on Component Prop Overrides: Adam Stankiewicz introduced a proposal aimed at enabling the extension or overriding of component properties without hard-coding vendor-specific attributes in the codebase. The primary motivation was to handle vendor-specific attributes, such as those used by tools like Datadog and Hotjar, more flexibly.
  1. Current Challenges:
    • Hard-coding attributes for specific vendors like Hotjar across the platform is not ideal as not all instances use the same vendors.
    • The proposed solution involves using a hook or higher-order component to apply custom prop types to any component dynamically.
  2. Implementation Details:
    • The proposal includes a configuration schema that allows specifying selectors and corresponding prop overrides.
    • A key part of the discussion was about ensuring that this approach doesn’t unintentionally allow the abuse of this flexibility, such as by overriding important properties like className or style incorrectly.
  3. Concerns Raised:
    • Security: David Joy and others expressed concerns about potential security issues, particularly with handlers like onClick, which could introduce vulnerabilities if misused.
    • Abuse of Flexibility: There were concerns about developers misusing this flexibility to override too many aspects of a component, potentially leading to bloated and hard-to-maintain configurations.
  4. Suggestions:
    • Limiting Scope: It was suggested that the proposal might need to be narrowed down, focusing on specific use cases such as PII masking rather than being too generic.
    • Naming Conventions: The term “selectors” was seen as potentially confusing, and a better naming convention was suggested to clarify the intent and usage.
  5. Next Steps:
    • Adam will refine the proposal based on the feedback, particularly focusing on security concerns and the potential for misuse.
    • A decision on whether to proceed with the current generic approach or to narrow it down will be considered.
  • Meeting Conclusion:
    • The group agreed to take the discussion async and revisit the proposal after further refinement. The meeting concluded with no additional topics raised.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.9. Large Instances Working Group

Chair: @braden & @Felipe

:paperclip: Latest news

eduNext

  • In the last internal hackathon, eduNext explored mechanisms to deploy application to multiple clusters. Experimented with several orchestration tools.
  • Open sourcing K6 is in progress. An official release is expected next Tuesday (in 1 week). The repo is still private, so it will be shared later probably during the next meeting.
  • There are plans to extract eduNext Aspect implementations to Tutor plugins.

OpenCraft

  • Elasticsearch in the shared configuration is working fine. There is a collision with the tutor plugin that might override the configuration. Gabor is looking into it. Link. If ENABLE_SHARED_SEARCH_CLUSTER is false we don’t want to put any override values at all.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.10. Marketing Working Group

Chair: Eden Huthmacher

:memo: Meeting notes

1.11. Maintainers

Chair: Feanil

  • Ubuntu 20.04 → ubuntu-latest
  • Need help to do this.
  • Instead of going to 24.04 just go to ubuntu-latest
  • Should there be exceptions to that?
    • Yes, for sure the code-jail repo which tests with underlying apparmor
  • Should we have a DEPR?
    • Yes, 6-month for any CI that should run on both.
  • To land this for Sumac, we need to have most of the work completed in Sept by maintainers.
  • Nascent proposal for getting maintainer involvement during the release testing/fixing window
    • Roughly:
      • There will be a single board for all issues that affects the upcoming release
      • These issue will be clearly marked (probably with labels) to communicate which ones are more important than others
      • BTR envisions that maintainers and CCs will pay attention to this board during the release testing/fixing window
      • The testing/fixing window will be announced.
    • Feedback:
      • can these be issues in the offending repo (rather than the wg-build-test-release repo) with certain labels for maintainers to watch?
      • yes. they may start in wg-build-test-release but BTR will move them over to the repo once the cause is clear
      • this will give maintainers one less place to look for issues
  • ecommerce Deprecation

:memo: Meeting notes

1.12. Product Working Group

Chair: Jenna Makowski

:paperclip: Latest news

  • UX/UI Working Group
  • Current Issues:
    • Figma lacks robust support for open-source design systems.
    • The organization owning the Figma file controls its publication.
  • Collaboration for Open edX:
    • Design system changes for Open edX require collaboration between the UX/UI group and the Paragon working group.
    • Ownership and publication authority remain with the organization that owns the Figma file.
  • Question Raised:
    • Who will own the Figma file to make it accessible to the Open edX community?
  • Discussion Points:
    • A consistent ownership model is needed for effective use of the Figma file by the community.
    • Axim can be a potential owner and publisher, but this would require all contributors to have Axim accounts, which may be complex with many users.
    • Alternatives include publishing under an entity like Open edX or a similar organization, ensuring clear management and hosting.
  • Final Decisions Taken:
    1. Ownership and Access Management:
    • Axim will own the Figma file.
    • Access will be managed on a project-by-project basis, with seats adjusted as needed.
    • The Product Delivery Team will handle seat rotation.
    • For cross-organizational projects, the working group may manage access.
    1. Designer Access:
    • Designers working on new or revised components will have temporary access to the Figma file to publish their work.
    • Completed components will be added to the Figma Library and codebase.
    1. Time-Based Access:
    • Access will be granted for the duration of each project.
    • UX/UI leads will maintain access throughout the project period.
  • LTI/Learning Tool WG Meeting

:memo: Meeting notes

1.13. Security Working Group

Chair: Feanil Patel

:arrow_down: Past meeting notes 2023-07-26 Security WG Meeting

:memo: Meeting notes

1.14. TOC

Chair: Ed Zarecor

:paperclip: Latest news

  • Open edX’s Current Market Position and Future Potential
    The dialogue opened with concerns about Open edX not achieving a definitive product-market fit which poses a risk to its ecosystem and stakeholders. It was highlighted that expanding the platform’s functionality to cater to residential (on-campus) learning could open new avenues and potentially invigorate its adoption. It would aim to create learning experiences that are more integrated and interactive, providing real-time feedback and support in physical classrooms. However, there was notable deliberation on whether Open edX, in its current architecture, could pivot to meet the demands of residential learning without extensive overhauls or if starting anew with a different product would be more feasible.

  • Concerns and Alternative Suggestions
    Participants expressed concerns about fragmenting the Open edX community with a shift towards a new product. There was also skepticism about whether an entirely new platform was needed or if iterative improvements to Open edX could achieve similar goals. Suggestions were made to further modularize Open edX to allow for easier customization and extension, which could potentially support more interactive and residential learning experiences without starting from scratch.

  • Funding and Resources
    The discussion touched on the need for funding innovative projects that could either extend or complement Open edX to support new forms of learning. It was proposed that small, funded projects could explore innovative educational technologies and tools that could later be integrated into Open edX or stand alone as new products.

  • Conclusion
    The meeting concluded without a consensus on a specific course of action but opened several critical lines of inquiry about the future direction of Open edX. It was agreed that more discussion was necessary, particularly around defining the target customer and market for Open edX and understanding the technical and financial implications of expanding or altering its offerings. The possibility of setting up further discussions or working groups to explore these issues was suggested.

  • Agreed Next Steps:

    • Further Discussions: Organize additional meetings or discussions, possibly involving external experts or stakeholders, to delve deeper into the feasibility and desirability of shifting towards residential learning platforms.
    • Market Analysis: Conduct a thorough market analysis to better understand the needs and expectations of potential markets for Open edX, particularly in the residential learning sector.
    • Technical Review: Assess the technical capabilities and limitations of Open edX in relation to the proposed new features for residential learning, considering both integration into the existing platform and the development of a new product.
    • Community Engagement: Engage more actively with the Open edX community to gather input and feedback on the proposed changes and ensure that any new direction has broad support and meets the needs of current and future users.

:memo: Meeting notes

1.15. Translation Working Group

Chair: Eden Huthmacher

:paperclip: Latest news

  • Colin Fredericks - edX documentation have been a huge help / asset historically, and ensuring others benefit from them as well would be great
  • John Swope - have struggled with docs, want to make better. This group can unify docs and have alignment w/ core product. Group can be in alignment w/ BTR, docs follow releases. Rubrics & standards; help troubleshooting
  • Sarina Canelake - want to enable the community to enable and maintain great documentation easily. ease of access to docs (authors / readers) is important.
  • Michelle Philbrick - docs aren’t great to find, I want to use the platform but don’t know where to start
  • Learner Docs - the challenges here often connect with mapping current platform version to the right version of documentation. a learner on edx.org would see something different than a learner on an instance running an older release (for example)
  • Video Content - high cost to maintain, high value / impact but need to be strategic in its use.
  • Documentation Forks - had previously been considered by community members (for instance specific docs) but this didn’t seem like an obvious / easy thing to do
    • Release based documentation switcher? Step in the right direction
    • Make sure Google is indexing the right version
  • Redwood documentation - Gratitude for the redwood docs, a step up in documentation clarity and a good sign that we are moving in the right direction
  • BTR release testing: in the future, synergy: BTR test cases have documentation, and the docs can be updated with latest screenshots, changed steps, etc

:memo: Meeting notes

2. Events

  • Would anyone like to highlight any past or upcoming events? Let us know in the comments!

3. Projects

Are there any new or ongoing projects you’d like to discuss? Get the conversation started in the comments below.

4. Next async update and meetup

  • Tuesday September 3rd - Join the meetup here!
    • Friday September 13th - Async update
  • Details and draft agenda on Confluence

:speech_balloon: Anything to add?

If there’s anything else you’d like to mention, please let us know in the comments below.

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Core Contributor Check-in: Aug 17th - 30th, 2024

:stopwatch: Core Contributor Hours

There was a total of 303 hours of contributions reported this past sprint with a 32% response rate.

response rate

:notebook_with_decorative_cover: Summary of Responses

Do you need any help? Or is there anything you’d like to collaborate on?

@pdpinch

What did you accomplish this sprint?

@Awais_Qureshi

  • Working on upgrading instructor Plain APIs upgrade to DRF. Merged few PRs in last sprint.

@jill

@chintan

  • Worked on the comments made by Feanil and Michelle
  • Did moderation on site for removal of some spam bots

@Felipe

  • Wrote the LTI redesign technical approach doc
  • Attended large instances meeting
  • Maintenance on filters/events roadmap
  • Reported a bug in course-authoring
  • Wrote a bug fix for the CourseEnrollment filter implementation in edx-platform

@Zia.Fazal

  • Fixed E2E tests in CI/CD workflow of H5PXblock
  • Published new version of H5PXblock after upgrading standalone H5P player
  • Reviewed edX Platform PR 35138 and 35390
  • Reviewed SCORM xblock PR 85

@farhan

  • Merged a PR

@Cassie

  • Worked on creating a document that shows the priorities from the “Improving the Core Contributor Experience” report - see it here

@Salman_Nawaz

  • Reviewed the iOS PR for the new feature relative date display in iOS application - PR reference

What do you plan to work on in the upcoming sprint?

@Awais_Qureshi

  • Keep working on upgrading instructor Plain APIs upgrade to DRF

@mafermazu

  • Continue with the WooCommerce issues
  • Collaborate more in the Documentation Working Group

@pdpinch

@ali_hugo

  • Jill has kindly offered to set up a sandbox with the ‘Notifications Tray’ feature enabled (#274). This will allow me to review the current implementation and assess whether it could be extended to deliver platform news to instructors and students

@farhan

@Salman_Nawaz

  • Review another PR for iOS application which is related to adding xBlock offline mode

What went well this sprint?

@farhan

  • Trouble shooting discussion with Kyle went very well

@chintan

  • Great support

@Awais_Qureshi

  • Merged a few PRs

:speech_balloon: Questions or comments?

Please add any questions or comments you might have below. We’d love to hear from you!

And if you’d like to take a peek at the full report, see it on Listaflow

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@jalondonot Interesting document! Does it come out of the work of the product working group? Is it linked to the roadmap? If you have pointers about it, I am curious about it.

@Eden_Huthmacher Would you have a link to this? Is it related to Community OKRs ¡ Issue #113 ¡ openedx/wg-coordination ¡ GitHub ?

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@antoviaque This is the initial framework/outline for which we leveraged the integration of OKRs within our marketing initiatives. We later extracted the details into GH, by creating individual tickets on the marketing board.

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